Comrade Lenin's second report concerned the question of social democratic participation in bourgeois press. The speaker set forth the viewpoint of the two wings of international social democracy on this matter and particularly the views of the orthodox and revisionist members of the German Social Democratic party. The orthodox members at the Dresden Party Congress{61} agreed to a formula permitting participation in press not hostile to social democracy, justifying this on the grounds that in practice this amounts to an outright prohibition, since in the present developed capitalist society there exist no bourgeois newspapers not hostile to social democracy.

The speaker takes the position of unconditional impermissibility of political participation in bourgeois press, especially in allegedly non-partisan press. Such newspapers as, for example, "Tovarishch," through their covert-hypocritical struggle against social democracy bring it far greater harm than openly hostile social democratic party bourgeois newspapers. The best illustration of this can be found in the contributions to "Tovarishch" by Plekhanov, Martov, Horn, Kogan and others. All these contributions are directed against the party, and in fact it was not the comrades of social democracy who utilized the bourgeois newspaper "Tovarishch," but rather this newspaper utilized the aforementioned comrades against the RSDLP which it despised. Not a single article by social democrats that would have displeased the editorial board of "Tovarishch" has appeared to date.

"Proletarii" No. 20, November 19, 1907

Printed according to the text of the newspaper "Proletarii"